Boomtown releases drug awareness documentary

The Boomtown festival is continuing its campaign on drug awareness with the release of a new short documentary on the subject. The film looks at various drug issues, and the steps taken at this year’s festival to improve safety.

As previously reported, Boomtown was one of a number of festivals this year to offer free drug testing, via not for profit organisation The Loop, so that festival-goers could find out what drugs they had specifically acquired. The event agreed to increased security on site in order to be allowed to have the drug testing service in place, and also dedicated a section of its website to raising awareness of current dangerous drug trends at festivals.

Among those to appear in the new documentary are director of The Loop Fiona Measham, Chill Welfare’s Katy MacLeod, Ed Morrow from Royal Society Of Public Health, musician Beans On Toast, and the family of Ellie Rowe, who died after taking ketamine at the 2013 edition of Boomtown.

Activities such as this to raise awareness are extremely important right now, says Measham: “In the UK drug related deaths are at their highest rates on record, ever. This isn’t just a problem for Boomtown or just for festivals, this is the situation right across the country”.

Meanwhile Boomtown Creative Director Lak Mitchell says of initiatives like those implemented at the festival this year: “It feels like a huge evolution in the festival world, all of a sudden things are stepping up and we’re progressing. We’d like to use the festival platform to introduce these new harm reduction services and ways of bringing public safety and education towards drugs [to the forefront]”.

Services provided by The Loop and Chill Welfare contributed to a 25% reduction of drug-related cases at Boomtown medical facilities this year. Watch the film here: